Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/368

A glaze of great decorative beauty was obtained by running deep rich blue, or indigo, over peacock green so that the surface of the latter seemed streaked or tesselated by the former. Of cognate type were glazes of turquoise—or king-fisher—blue variegated with metallic spots. In both these kinds lustre, fineness of crackle, and richness and variety of colour are easy tests of excellence. As a rule, however, the paste is inferior, for though light and thin, it belongs to the stone-ware class and shows a marked tinge of reddish brown. Such polychromes were manufactured with success up to so late a time as the Taou-Kwang era (1821-1851).

The term Fang-chün-yao, or "imitation Chün-yao," is chiefly applied in China to ware of remarkable beauty, having soft, delicate clair-de-lune glaze among which float clouds of peach-bloom red; the latter not a solid colour but an agglomeration of tiny flecks and speckles, pervaded by a more or less distinct tinge of buff or light brown. It will at once be seen that this glaze might have been classed as a variety of the red polychromes described above, but owing to its peculiar merits and to the fact that Chinese connoisseurs specially distinguish it, it is here placed in a separate category. It is certainly one of the choicest among polychromatic glazes, considered either from the point of view of æsthetic delicacy or from that of decorative effect. That a certain element of accident